1% Better Every Day

Biological Parallel

Bacteria with a 1% replication advantage (20.2 minutes vs 20 minutes) dominate a petri dish within days through exponential compounding. Small percentage advantages, repeated consistently, create overwhelming differences. This is 1% better encoded in exponential growth: tiny improvements compound multiplicatively, not additively. Evolution operates on marginal gains—organisms don't need dramatic superiority, just consistent statistical edges that compound over generations. Slight beats spectacular when compounded across iterations.